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Sheldon Vanauken
Sheldon Vanauken (August 4, 1914 - October 28, 1996) is an American poet and prose author. Life Overview Vanauken is best known for his autobiographical book A Severe Mercy (1977), which recounts his and his wife's friendship with C.S. Lewis, their conversion to Christianity, and his coping with her early death. He published a sequel, Under the Mercy, in 1985. Youth Vanauken was born Frank Sheldon Vanauken on August 4, 1914, in DeKalb county, Indiana, the son of Grace (Hanselmann) and Glenn Vanauken.Clifton W. Potter, Jr., Vanauken, Sheldon (1914-1996), Encyclopedia Virginia. Web, Apr. 4, 2015. The family's last name was often spelled "Van Auken"; for example, "County Man Named For Joint Senator", Ft. Wayne Sentinal, August 17, 1912. His parents were of German and Dutch descent, their grandparents having migrated to Indiana from eastern Pennsylvania and Columbiana County, Ohio.Census records for 1850, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, www.ancestry.com''History of Steuben County, Indiana''. 1885. pp 794-803. Vanauken was named for his grandfathers, Frank Vanauken, a teacher,Indiana State Teachers Association. The Indiana School Journal, Bell and Brown, 1876. and Sheldon Fitch Hanselman, an attorney.Upton, Harriet Taylor. History of the Western Reserve, Vol II. Chicago, Lewis Publishing Company, 1910. His father, a wealthy attorney, was a self-made lawyer who became influential in local politics,www.politicalgraveyard.com served as a state senator, and owned the Indiana Broadcasting Company.Carmel Clay Historical Society: The Carmel Signal, November/December 2008. Vanauken grew up at the family home, "Glenmerle", (a composite of his parents' middle names) located on Carmel's south side (It has since been demolished to extend the Woodland Golf Course.)Idem. He attended Culver Military Academy, Staunton Military Academy and, for a year, Miami Military Academy in Florida.Census records for 1930 in Florida, www.ancestry.com He earned his undergraduate degree from Wabash College in 1938,Stewart, Brandon. "You Always Felt Welcome". WM Online (www.wabash.edu/magazine), 2008. where he was a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity,Poletti, Jonathan. "In Memoriam: Paths Trod by Sheldon Vanauken" New Oxford Review, Jan-February 1997. He was interested in flying, and had his own small plane at Wabash which his father bought for him. He later attended Yale and Oxford universities.Self-composed obituary, published after his death in the Lynchburg News and Advance. While at college, he dropped the "Frank" from his name. In later life, he was known to friends simply as "Van".Poletti. Ibid. Marriage and religious conversion Van met Jean "Davy" Palmer Davis during his junior year at Wabash. She was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, on July 24, 1914,Ship's manifest, President Coolidge, May 1941, "Honolulu, Hawaii Passenger & Crew Lists, 1900-1969", National Archives, at www.ancestry.com. the daughter of Reverend Staley Franklin Davis (1877-1926),Sinclair, Donald, and Helen Maher. A New Jersey Biographical Index. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1993. a prominent Methodist minister, and his wife Helen Larter (Fredericks) Davis (1885-1950), a teacher. Staley Davis was a native of Pataskala, Ohio, and Helen Davis of Newark, New Jersey. Davy's sister Helen Marjorie (1908-1991) was 6 years older, and her brother Donald 3 years younger. When Davy was 14 years old, 2 years after her father's death, she became pregnant by an unknown man. She gave the baby girl, whom she called Marion, up for adoption but never forgot her. Davy had been educated in a Vermont boarding school, but had to withdraw due to lack of funds after her father's death. After finishing school, she worked in New York City for a time before moving to Indianapolis to enter Butler University.Huston, James Albert, editor. A Hooser Sampler: An Anthology of Indiana Writers. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2000, p. 525. Shortly after beginning her studies there, she met Sheldon Vanauken at the Indianapolis department store where she worked hand-tinting photographs to earn her tuition. Van and Davy soon fell deeply in love and made a vow they called the "Shining Barrier". In brief, they promised to share everything in life, including all their interests, friends, and work, in order to tie themselves so closely together that nothing could ever separate them. Their devotion to this idea was so complete that they decided never to have children, as they felt that motherhood would be an experience which could not be shared equally. Both were agnostics at this time. They were married secretly (due, according to A Severe Mercy, to Van's father's objection to early marriages) on October 1, 1937,"About the Author" microsite timeline on Vanauken at http://www.harpercollins.com 10 months after they met. They apparently kept their secret for some years, as they are both listed as "single" in the 1940 census, and are living apart -- Van with his parents in DeKalb County, and Davy in a boarding house in Indianapolis, where she is listed as working as a bank teller. It is unclear when the couple were finally able to live openly as husband and wife, but it may have been when Van's father died suddenly in 1943 during World War II."Through a doctor's blunder" according to A Severe Mercy. Vanauken inherited a substantial amount of money and used some of it to have a boat built which they named Grey Goose, for the bird which remains true to its mate throughout life. Following Van's studies in history at Yale, from which he received a Master's degree in 1948, and a stint in the Navy stationed in Hawaii, the young couple spent considerable time sailing Grey Goose around Chesapeake Bay, the Florida Keys, and the Caribbean. In 1948, Vanauken took a teaching position at Lynchburg College. However, when postwar travel to Europe became possible again, he took a sabbatical and he and Davy moved to England so that he could study at Oxford University (where he was awarded a B.Litt. in 1957).Potter, ibid. While they were there, they became friends with a circle of young Christian students. Eventually, Davy "crossed the room" to became a devout Anglican Christian herself; she had reexamined her life and views on the nature of sin after a thwarted attempt by a stranger to assault her. Her conversion was also partly owing to the friendship and influence of C.S. Lewis, who was teaching at Oxford at the time. In the spirit of the "Shining Barrier", Van followed her, but with less conviction and even with some resentment. Upon their return to Lynchburg, Van continued teaching history and literature at Lynchburg College. They joined a local congregation and explored their faith further. It was eventually to be tested severely. Davy contracted a virus which attacked her liver. At the time of her diagnosis in the summer of 1954, Vanauken had just resigned to accept a job offer from his alma mater, Wabash College, but asked Lynchburg to rehire him in order to stay near Davy's doctors, which they did. Tragically, Davy died of her illness soon after, on January 28, 1955.Taylor, Jack "Sheldon Vanauken, RIP". This Rock, vol. 8 no. 2, February 1997. She was 40 years old, and they had been married for over 17 years. A great part of A Severe Mercy concerns how Van came to grips with losing his beloved wife with the help of his increasing faith and his correspondence with Lewis, who soon was to face the loss of his own terminally ill wife. Vanauken later called the "Shining Barrier" he and Davy had created a "pagan love, invaded by Christ." He never remarried, and eventually converted to Roman Catholicism in 1981. Later life Van continued to teach at Lynchburg College to the end of his career. In the 1960s, he was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and a supporter of the feminist movement, although he eventually abandoned the latter in the belief that it had become too radical. The Oxford English Dictionary credits him as one of the earliest users of the word sexist, in the pamphlet "Freedom for Movement Girls Now", published by the Southern Student Organizing Committee (a progressive student organization in the southern United States), wherein he was active during the 1960s. He was also a candidate for public office on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket in Virginia. After his conversion to Catholicism, he was a contributing editor of the New Oxford Review and a frequent contributor to Crisis and Southern Partisan''Oran P. Smith, editor. ''So Good A Cause: A Decade of Southern Partisan. Columbia, SC: Foundation for American Education, 1993. magazines, as well as to other periodicals and newspapers. He expressed sympathy for the Confederacy in his 1985 book, The Glittering Illusion, although he was always critical of racism and slavery.Hartman, David. "Remembering Van". New Oxford Review, October 1997. Years after Davy's death, Vanauken went looking for the daughter Davy had given up for adoption as a young girl. The story of his search, their 1988 meeting, and how it affected his beliefs is related in The Little Lost Marion, and other mercies, which was written shortly before his death. "Marion", who had been given another name by her adoptive parents, had become a nurse and had 3 children with her husband, a physician.Vanauken, Sheldon. The Little Lost Marion and Other Mercies. Franciscan University Press, December 1996. He remained an ardent Anglophile all his life, and often used British spelling and expressions in his writing. Vanauken died of cancer on October 28, 1996.Taylor, ibid. His ashes were scattered in the churchyard of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Forest, Virginia, as those of his wife Davy had been 40 years previously.Self-composed obituary, Lynchburg News and Advance''www.findagrave.com Some were also scattered in a churchyard in Binsey, England, where a friend, Edmund Dews, had scattered some of Davy's ashes after her death. (Lewis' letter agreeing to scatter the ashes was lost in the mail, so Vanauken asked Edmund to do it.) Recognition ''A Severe Mercy won a National Book Award in the one-year category Religion/Inspiration. "National Book Awards – 1980". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-08. From 1980 to 1983 in National Book Award history there were dual awards for hardcover and paperback books in many categories, including several nonfiction subcategories. Most of the paperback award-winners were reprints, including this one. A movie version of A Severe Mercy was in development in 2013 by Origin Entertainment, who had optioned the film rights in late 2012. Publications Poetry *''Mercies: Collected poems''. Front Royal, VA: Christendom College Press, 1988. Novels *''Gateway to Heaven''. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980. Non-fiction *''Encounter With Light''. Wheaton, IL: Wheaton College, 197? *''A Severe Mercy'' (biography). London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1977; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977. *''Under the Mercy'' (biography). New York: Nelson, 1985. *''The Glittering Illusion: English sympathy for the southern Confederacy''. Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1989. *''The Little Lost Marion, and other mercies'' (biography). Steubenville, OH: Franciscan University Press, 1996. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Sheldon Vanauken, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, May 9, 2013. See also *List of U.S. poets References External links ;Prose *Sheldon Vanauken Letters ;Audio / video *Sheldon Vanauken at YouTube ;Books *Sheldon Vanauken at Amazon.com ;About *Sheldon Vanauken (1914-1996) at Encyclopedia Virginia *Sheldon Vanauken at Find a Grave *Love Meets Death or Why Sheldon Vanauken Gets on My Nerves at Spectrum magazine ;Etc. * Jean Davis Vanauken at Find a Grave Category:1914 births Category:1996 deaths Category:American journalists Category:American memoirists Category:American novelists Category:American poets Category:American Roman Catholics Category:American people of Dutch descent Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Evangelicalism Category:Roman Catholic writers Category:Wabash College alumni Category:National Book Award winners Category:20th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets